Sony press conference at E3

LOS ANGELES – Video games in 2015 may run on some of the most advanced computing hardware available, but it seems there’s no more mighty a force in gaming than old-school, heartstrings-tugging nostalgia.

Japanese gaming rivals Nintendo and Sony took the wraps off their upcoming catalogue of games at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles this week, with Sony renting out the giant L.A. Memorial Coliseum for a glitzy showcase event Monday night, while Nintendo opted for an intimate streaming broadcast Tuesday morning.

Both companies are experimenting with brand new game concepts and franchises, but the most passionate reaction from fans seemed to come from new takes on old games.

“If there’s a secret to the longevity of Nintendo franchises, it is transformation,” said Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, during Nintendo’s Digital Event, which was broadcast – and available for replay – on e3.nintendo.com.

Nintendo will be revisiting plenty of its core franchises in 2015 and 2016, including a reboot of sorts for the Star Fox series, called Star Fox Zero, coming to the Wii U late this year. The game will allow players to use the Wii U GamePad screen as the view from the cockpit of their transforming Arwing spacecraft, while the TV screen offers a broader view of the world.

Nintendo’s wildly popular Amiibo figurines will feature prominently in the company’s plans for 2015 and 2016, including a new hybrid Amiibo that will work in both Nintendo games and Activision’s bestselling Skylanders series. Two figures were announced – Turbo Charge Donkey Kong and Hammer Slam Bowser – but they’ll only be sold with Skylanders SuperChargers starter packs, and not available separately.

The new Legend of Zelda game coming next year for the Wii U wasn’t shown, and while the company acknowledged that they’re working on a new game console, codenamed NX, they said they’d wait until 2016 to talk more about it.

Sony’s method of revealing their upcoming gaming lineup couldn’t have been more different from Nintendo’s, but it was nostalgia that drew the biggest reactions from many game fans. At a large, loud showcase event, Sony surprised gamers with the announcement of a full remake of the classic 1997 role-playing game Final Fantasy VII, and – somewhat unusually – a Kickstarter campaign for Shenmue III, the long-awaited sequel to the Sega Dreamcast games Shenmue and Shenmue II. The Shenmue III Kickstarter was seeking US$2 million to get the game off the ground, and was fully funded in less than 12 hours.

Also making a surprise appearance was The Last Guardian, a follow-up to the beloved PlayStation 2 games ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, which has been in gestation for many years. Sony showed off in-game action on the PlayStation 4, in which the young hero and his giant bird-like dog work together to overcome obstacles.

Sony Computer Entertainment of America CEO Shawn Layden spoke of “a reality where games are the cultural zeitgeist,” and the company revealed dozens of games that are either exclusive to the PS4, will arrive first on the PS4 or will have PS4-only content. Upcoming exclusives include the cave people vs. robots post-apocalyptic action game Horizon: Zero Dawn (by Killzone creators Guerilla Games) and Dreams, a difficult-to-define new game by Media Molecule, makers of LittleBigPlanet.

Also shown for the first time was a new game in the Hitman series, a brief look at the Morpheus virtual reality headset and the frenetic, futuristic action of Call of Duty: Black Ops III. New map packs for Black Ops III will be available first on PS4, marking the first time Sony has yanked that exclusivity away from rival Microsoft’s Xbox consoles. “PlayStation is the new home of Call of Duty,” boasted Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Andrew House.

Sony’s E3 tactics were markedly different from Microsoft’s, though. Where Microsoft has been focusing largely on Xbox One games coming in 2015 – including Halo 5: Guardians, Rise of the Tomb Raider and a high-definition re-release of the Gears of War series – Sony trotted out a lot of videos for games that don’t have any release windows, some of which may not arrive for two years. But they closed out their showcase with a jaw-dropping new gameplay demonstration of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, coming to the PS4 next spring. Keep an eye for a nostalgic remake of that one… in 2039.